Your impression is only correct if you are counting the number of subscribers. Since F2P, the computation of the number of players is a lot squishier, but it is well north of a million.

You also overestimate the number of Mac gamers, and your idea that PC gamers avoid games because their Mac-owning friends can't play them is sketchy at best. All the Mac gamers I know have dual boot anyway.

Your impression is only correct if you are counting the number of subscribers. Since F2P, the computation of the number of players is a lot squishier, but it is well north of a million.

You also overestimate the number of Mac gamers, and your idea that PC gamers avoid games because their Mac-owning friends can't play them is sketchy at best. All the Mac gamers I know have dual boot anyway.

Pretty correct here, mac owner myself and I only boot into windows to game. If I could stay in OSX to do that I gladly would. When GW2 released their Mac Client Beta I was quiet happy. When word of a STO client being developed reached my ears I was also happy. Though the game runs perfectly well in Boot camp also, pretty much anything does honestly.

Not everybody wants to do a Boot Camp install. Some don't have the disk space. Some don't want to buy a whole Windows license to play one (otherwise free) game. Using FileVault 2 whole disk encryption also precludes the option to use Boot Camp. For those of us carrying around sensitive information on our laptops, that feature is not optional.

People also use their platform of choice for their own reasons. They aren't likely to switch their main computer for one (again, otherwise free game). Nor will most people want to have a separate machine just for that. I have a PC dedicated to STO, but I'm a fringe case in the amount of techno clutter I'm willing to tolerate in my home.

Regardless of the existing "solutions", they all represent a barrier that could prevent an otherwise willing player from playing the game. Though Mac market share globally is something like 7% (impoverished third world countries don't buy a lot of brand name anything), STO is primarily a North American and otherwise English speaking game, with some popularity in other European countries (especially Germany). North American Mac market share is more like 15%. Web usage share is potentially higher, but I couldn't find usage share numbers for specific markets (just globally). Even taking the 15% number, ignoring 15% of your potential customers in your biggest market is bad for any business.

And who are these 15%? Well, they're people who can afford a Macintosh apparently. I love the Mac platform for many reasons, but Apple does not play in the bottom of the market. You want a Mac laptop, come with a budget of at least $1000 or don't bother to show up. It's reasonable to assume that those of us who are OK with spending $1000... $1300... maybe even $2000 on a laptop have the disposable income to sink some serious cash into a hobby. Basically, Mac users are people Cryptic should very much want to tap into, without additional barriers in our way.

It's probably just going to be a supported Cider wrapper rather than a true native client.

Yup, and that's totally fine. Microsoft did a good thing in creating DirectX, a complete end-to-end API for game development. I understand why things are developed for DirectX, and I wouldn't expect a game developed for it to get totally rebuilt for OpenGL and OS X's various other APIs (CoreAudio, etc). Cider may involve a performance hit, it would be better to have a true native version, but I'll take what we can get. Whatever helps people get into the game with minimum hassle.

On the other hand, STO runs on the Cryptic Engine. Porting the Cryptic Engine means the bulk of the work is done, and that work can then be applied to the other Cryptic games (Neverwinter anyone?). So, while it might not be worth the effort for STO alone, it may be worth the effort when you take into account the financial return across all Cryptic games. Porting UE3 allowed me to play Arkham Asylum on my Mac Mini without much trouble, I'd be ecstatic for a true Mac port of STO.